I've had luck with Round-up on Lily of the Valley. Haven't tried to kill pachysandra.

Maybe invite gardeners in your area to "dig your own" for free. Free plants have a way of disappearing on their own. :)

IMHO pachysandra is not hard to dig up unless its growing in a lot of clay. The roots are large, easy to see and near the surface.

craigslist.com or your local freecycle...

lilly of the valley is too nice a plant to kill off just because you don't like it- you can pull them up in clumps, and give them to people who will love them...

or donate them to a shady nook near a local nursing home.

or tell us where you live- if you're within a hour's drive of me, I'll take a station wagon full of your unwanteds :)!!!!

Lily of the Valley may be a wonderful plant to some but it was a headache for me, tearing across my whole lawn without shame, shade or sun, and killing everything else I tried to plant. (the plants were there when I bought the house). Nothing got rid of it except patience and a LOT of elbow grease. I tried to give it some away, but no one in my neighborhood would touch it. It is lovely looking, for about 3 weeks, but then it just looks like spent bulb foliage. If I could have contained it I would have kept some of it, but the root system was incredibly invasive.

Any Progress on killing the lilly of the valley, i have some to and it is spreading everywhere and making my garden look awful, how did you get rid of it????

I'm trying Round Up on some right now, I am not sure if it is truly killed or not. I do love the flowers and the scent is amazing but it is very invasive in my garden. Smothers everything in it's path, sun or shade.

A pitchfork now will get both plants and the new runners.

I need to kill off unwanted Lilies of the Valley. They are winning the battle. Their root systems have spread over my other gardens, brink steps, brink patio, and into my lawn. I need to kill off unwanted plants. Elbow grease will just kill off plants in my other garden areas. Please help! I did not know that they would get so out of control.

I read that pouring boiling water on them kills them--this would work only if they were in a clump and there weren't other plants you wanted to save. We're trying to get rid of them at my son's home as they are toxic and their one year old puts everything in his mouth! They're nice if you have them in an out of the way place where they can just do their thing and a pain in other landscaping!

I still have not eradicated lily of the valley from my yard. I've tried removing the foliage after bloom, Round Up, digging, pulling etc. I've tried giving it away as well. It is entangled with trees, shrubs, bulbs and perennials as well as other more desirable groundcovers. I can't just dig up the entire bed and start over.....

If we spray lily of the valley with round up, do we still have to dig out all the roots? I have a patch of it where I also had english ivy. I dug up most of the ivy earlier this spring, but am wondering what to do with the lily of the valley. It spread throughout the whole area and some are going through the path onto the other side into day lilies - not good.

The funny thing is that I'm looking to cover an eyesore of a hill in our backyard with something that will be indestrucable and am seriously considering lily of the valley. Although I hear it takes a while to establish so I might go with something that will cover the area faster. Very interesting though, that some people crave coverage of certain plants whereas to others it is something they are desperately trying to get rid of.

About 10 years ago a friend gave me 3 Lily of the Valley Plants. It took at least 8 years for them to spread. I am now trying to get rid of them. They have taken over my whole flower bed. When they are in bloom they don't even have the lovely sweet smell. My husband and I are both too old to get out there to dig them out. There must be something out there to kill them, but I haven't found it yet.

I'm so surprised to hear that lily of the valley can be anything but the sweet and innocent little thing that I know her to be.

So, what sort of weather do you have, those of you for whom this plant runs wild? If you lived near me, or even up to an hours drive away or two, I'd come and gather a car and trailer full if I was allowed. But I am on the other side of the planet and even for lily of the valley, it's just too far to travel.

You can cover them with cardboard and mulch to smother them. I am going to try flaming them before they drop seeds. I'm sure I will have to repeat it but I bet I will win after a couple of flamings!

I once had some Virginia creeper that nothing would kill. So I tried suffocation, similar to what worthyvess suggested. I mowed the stuff down as low as possible. Then I placed 6 layers of newspaper over it and sealed the edges with bricks. You can also use soil or other materials to seal the edges and keep light and air from reaching the plants. Then I placed a 1" layer of topsoil on the newspaper, followed by a 1" layer of compost. I did this in the fall. By the following spring, I had a nice, fertile bed with no Virginia creeper. You can also use clear plastic for suffocation.

If anyone wants lily of the valley and lives near Boston let me know. I’m trying to get rid of some.

ddarl69@comcast.net

Apparently they are highly toxic to dogs and if it can make them extremely sick and or kill them

I'm trying to kill some now that have taken over, grown into the wood of the garden bed, and through the crevices of concrete blocks into the neighbor's yard. I'm afraid that even if I'm successful on my side, they will just come right back ugh! I am going to try digging up all the rhizomes (since I took everything out of the bed to fully start over) then I'll do 2 layers of cardboard and inches of mulch to smother, and then I may put a mixture of soap, salt, and vinegar on their leaves for any that sprout up. Have quite a few in between the roots of a maple and cherry tree as well. I will update on my progress for those who find themselves on this page. I never found this plant attractive either btw, seemed like a sad bulb leaf/weed to me. If I had known how difficult they were to eradicate I would have began the battle when I first moved into this house. Yikes! Demon plants, if you ask me. I hate them more than my other neighbor's cats shitting in my yard.

I'm with you Anna. Am presently digging mine out, but even small tendrils seem to grow again. It's entwined round all my daffodils and tulips so am digging them out too. When I have the bed cleared, I will spray with Roundup if any comes back up. Don't know about smothering, though, mine has grown under pathways and stepping stones. Devil weed I call it.

After 3 sprays of Round-Up - spaced a week or two apart, I was able to kill the strip of Lilly-of-the-Valley along my front walk that I was trying to get rid of. I had no recurrence of sprigs coming up. I have quite a bit of this in my shady yard (Zone 5) and it does make a thick ground cover once it spreads. It looks lovely in the spring, especially when blooming in May, and in early summer, but by mid-August it starts to look ratty and yellows very early. Since it dies to the ground with first frost, it is not a problem when raking leaves in the fall like pachysandra.